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System for simply and directly providing local information based solely on zip code information

The present invention is directed to interactive websites, and more particularly to an informative and interactive website for facilitating real estate sales and property ownership.

Millions of Americans buy or sell a home each year. While purchasing a new home can be an exciting and exhilarating experience, it can also be a stressful and difficult process due to the wide reaching consequences of such an important decision. As such, most future homeowners strive to gather as much information as possible about the prospective home and its community in order to make an informed decision. This information can include town and school statistics, sex offender registries, town hall records, board of health records, and any other information that may aid a future or current homeowner. Also, to assist and facilitate home sales, realtors or other real estate professionals often must gather and present to a prospective buyer an extensive amount of information regarding the home and its surroundings.

After completion of the sale, the new homeowner is faced with the task of quickly hooking up telephone, gas, electric, cable and other basic utility services to ensure a smooth move-in. Likewise, a homeowner who has recently sold his or her home is faced with the task of disconnecting these same utilities to ensure a smooth move-out.

To facilitate both the purchase/sale decision as well as the move-in/move-out process, the parties involved often need to gather a large amount of locally specific information. This information, however, is usually not found in one place, and can be time consuming and frustrating to locate. Several resources have been created to assist future, current and previous homeowners in finding this information. These resources, however, are inadequate for a variety of reasons.

One such resource, in use for many years, is the paper telephone book. While the telephone book certainly provides the contact information for any one business, school, or government entity in the area, a homeowner or real estate professional is faced with the time-consuming task of flipping back and forth between the pages, pouring over small print to find the correct local phone numbers or addresses for these entities. Furthermore, as most telephone books are only updated annually or semi-annually, the homeowner or real estate professional has no assurance that the information contained in the telephone book is still correct. Also, the homeowner just moving in may not yet have a telephone book, and would need to go to a public pay phone or would need to borrow one from a neighbor.

With the advent of the world-wide-web, the information contained in the telephone book has been made more accessible to future, current and previous homeowners, as well as to real estate professionals, in electronic form. Although more accessible, this resource still is subject to some of the same weaknesses attributed to its paper counterpart. A homeowner must still browse many business, school, and government listings on many web pages to find the addresses and phone numbers of each entity. Additionally, these resources may not provide a hyperlink to the entities website, requiring the homeowner to call or visit each entity to retrieve additional information, if needed.

In addition, homeowners who have neither recently purchased nor recently sold a home still pass through periods of stress or difficulty related to home ownership. One such scenario occurs when a crucial system in the house, such as the heater, breaks. In this scenario the homeowner needs to quickly find and contact a vendor to fix the problem. The telephone book or yellow pages, whether in the paper or on-line version, is usually the first place that most homeowners turn to find a vendor in a hurry. These listings do little, however, to help a homeowner know which of all the vendors is able, trustworthy, and cost efficient. Thus, many homeowners rely on the ads in the telephone book, resulting in sometimes inept or very expensive service.

In one general aspect, the invention is a method for facilitating access to local move-in information and move-out information by real estate professionals and homeowners. The method includes the steps of: providing an internet-accessible website having a home webpage and a second webpage; requesting only location information on the home webpage; and displaying on the second webpage move-in and move-out information which is specific to the location information.

In preferred embodiments, the location information is a zip code. In other preferred embodiments, the location information is a town and a state.

In some preferred embodiments, the move-in and move-out information includes at least one of a phone number and a website address of a local utility. In other preferred embodiments, the move-in and move-out information includes at least one of a phone number and a website address of each of a plurality of local utilities. In further preferred embodiments, the move-in and move-out information of the plurality of local utilities is grouped together on a first portion of the second webpage.

In some embodiments, the invention also further includes displaying on the second webpage helpful contact information which is specific to the location information, the helpful contact information including contact information for at least one of: Fire, Police, Board of Health, Building Inspector, Registry of Deeds, Assessors Office. In further preferred embodiments, the helpful contact information is grouped together on a second portion of the second webpage.

In some embodiments, the invention also further includes displaying on the second webpage a list of vendor categories, each vendor category being associated with a link to at least one vendor in the vendor category, the at least one vendor being associated with the location information. In further preferred embodiments, the at least one vendor is assigned a rating.

Another general aspect of the invention is a web-based user interface for facilitating access to move-in and move-out information by real estate professionals and homeowners The user interface includes: a location input module on a home page of a website, the location input module allowing a user to submit only location information on the home page; and a move-in and move-out information display module on a second page of the website, the information display module displaying move-in information and move-out information which is associated with the location information.

In preferred embodiments, the location information is a zip code. In other preferred embodiments, the location information is a town and a state.

In some embodiments, the invention also further includes a vendor information display module on the second page of the website, the vendor information display module displaying a list of vendor categories, each vendor category being associated with a link to at least one vendor in the vendor category, the at least one vendor being associated with the location information.

Another general aspect of the invention is a web-based user interface for facilitating access to vendor information by real estate professionals and homeowners. The user interface includes: a location input module on a home page of a website, the location input module allowing a user to submit only location information on the home page; and a vendor information display module on a second page of the website, the information display module displaying vendor information which is associated with the location information.

In some embodiments, the invention also further includes: home and community information specific to the location information.

Another general aspect of the invention is a method for facilitating access to local vendor information by real estate professionals and homeowners. The method includes: providing an internet-accessible website having a home webpage and a second webpage; requesting only location information on the home webpage; and displaying on the second webpage links to vendor information which is specific to the location information.

In preferred embodiments, the links to vendor information are grouped together on a first portion of the second webpage.

In other preferred embodiments, each link to vendor information is associated with a vendor category.